017 ST_The Sin of Self Righteousness

Prayer Beakfast  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
0 ratings
· 3 views
Notes
Transcript
About fifty years ago after I became a Christian, I often had people tell me I should read the book, Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. The book is based on radio broadcasts Lewis made about the Christian Life during World War II in 1940s. I never did read this book, but I happened upon one of these broadcasts last weekend. In this broadcast, Lewis talks about what he calls the great sin. After listening to it, I was very convicted about how this great sin that Lewis described is in my life. So my primary purpose in talking about this great sin is primarily for my benefit, but I think it is going to be helpful to all of you because according to Lewis, no one is exempt from it.
I am going to start off by reading what he wrote about this great sin.
I now come to the part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; of this; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad tempered, or that they can’t keep their head about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more conscious of it ourselves, the more we dislike it others.
The vice I am talking about of is Pride or Self-conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the center of Christian morals did not lie there. Well now, we have to come the center. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison, it was through Pride the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
Now as I listen Lewis talk about this, God convicted to me of my own pride. I have even my own wife say to me on occasion, in her southern way of speaking, “you are sure full of yourself.” Well sometimes I am and I wish I wasn’t.
The Bible talks about the sin of pride a lot and a good example of what pride looks like with is in the parable of the self-righteous pharisee in Luke 18:9-14
Luke 18:9 And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: 10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. 12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
In other words, the person who exalts himself with his self-righteousness is humbled, and the person who humbles himself is exalted.
Pride manifests itself in several ways, but I wanted to just mention two different categories. The first category is moral self-righteousness. And that is what we see in the parable we just read. The Pharisee saw himself as morally superior to the tax collector. The question we can ask is, was the Pharisee morally superior to the tax collector? On the outside he may have been, but on the inside where it counts, he was not because he didn’t really see the inside of himself to see how bad he really was, like the tax collector had.
Now in our day, it is easy to think as Christian Conservatives, we are morally superior to Progressive Liberals who abort babies, mutilate children with transgender surgery, legalize marijuana, open borders, same sex marriage, I could go on ad naseum. What do you think? Are conservatives morally superior to progressive liberals.
The key to living to the Christian life is not how good we are, but to understand how bad we are. And that all of us need to cry out like the tax collector, God be merciful to me a sinner.
Bud story. in my previous jobs, I met and worked with hundreds of people. Photographic memory. You are dead to me. I guess I could try to explain it to you. He was always the smartest guy in the room. His pride and self-conceit was so bad, he was hard to take. Bud needed Christ. The principle I want us to get this some morning, pride is all our problem, and we need to humble ourselves before the Lord and mortify sin.
There is another category of pride which is called the Pride of Correct Doctrine. This isn’t easy. In Christianity, there are basic doctrines that are essential to being a Christian that we all are in agreement with. We’re sinners, Christ died to save us from our sin, we need to believe, and we demonstrate our belief by receiving Christ as Savior.
However, there are a second order of doctrines that some, including me can hold very close. Jerry Bridges in his book Respectable Sins puts it this way,
“Those of us who care about doctrine at all are susceptible to this form of pride. It doesn’t matter if we are Arminians or Calvinists, whether we subscribe to Dispensational or Covenant theology, or perhaps have embraced some form of eclectic theology, we tend to think our doctrinal beliefs are the correct ones and look with some disdain on those whose beliefs are different from ours. And then to complete the spectrum of this type of pride, there are those who don’t consider doctrine important and so look with disdain on those of us who do. In other words, this form of pride is a pride in our particular belief system, whatever that may be, and an attitude that in our beliefs are spiritually superior to those who hold other beliefs.”
This type of pride is a problem throughout the Christendom, and that is why we have so many different denominations throughout the world. We will think that we are spiritually superior over those we don’t think have the right theology. To do that is sinful and bad behavior. Again, the question isn’t who is spiritually superior, but the issue is to show Christian love and mercy to our brother in these second order doctrines. Because we don’t want to harm their faith. It is more important show humility than argue who is right. It is okay to have honest discussion, but not to elevate above that.
Now there is a caveat to this, and I need to explain it. Greater Light is an Independent Baptist Church. And some of the distinctives of our church are: we use the KJV in the pastor’s preaching and teaching. We believe baptism is for believers only. We believe in dispensational theology hermeneutic as the framework in how we interpret the bible. We teach the pretribulational rapture of the church and millennial kingdom of Christ. These are the things that make us an independent Baptist church and Greater Light Baptist church in particular. Are these things important? Yes.
Now does that mean that you have to believe every one of those things to be a member of Greater Light? No, not necessarily but what it does mean is, if you don’t believe these things, you are not to be a troublemaker and argue against these things with other church members and cause division in the church. We cannot let spiritual pride of doctrine cause us to hurt the church or the individual Christians. If someone is attending our church and want to join, they need to respect our church distinctives. The question you might want to ask is why might someone join our church who doesn’t believe in all our distinctives? This is not as uncommon as you think. People join churches for all sorts of reasons and as a Christian church we should receive them.
But what I want us to remember is that it is important to show love and mercy to each other when it comes to things. And as I close, I want to read this passage from Jude, as he warns his readers of what to watch for and how to conduct ourselves in these last days.
Jude 1:17-21 But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; 18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. 19These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. 20But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, 21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more
Earn an accredited degree from Redemption Seminary with Logos.